The Escape

by David Baldacci

  “You picked the right store to fly into. A linen shop. You hit the glass, which was hard. But you fell into a display of comforters and very soft pillows. Sort of cushioned everything.”

  “And Carter?” she mumbled.

  He shook his head and said grimly, “Didn’t make it. Neither did Sullivan or the driver. Nothing much left of any of them.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “They brought you in last evening. It’s now late afternoon.”

  “I suppose people want to question me?”

  “They do. But I got permission to come in here and sit with you until you came around. The cops and the Feds are all over the crime scene. Lots of people saw things. They’ve got lots of statements.”

  “But I bet they don’t know what I saw.”

  Puller sat down in a chair next to her bed. “So why don’t you tell me what that was?”

  Knox glanced at the glass door to her room and saw a police officer, a man in a suit, and a burly MP standing guard there.

  “They’re not taking any chances with you,” he said, following her gaze. “Cops, FBI, and the military.”

  She turned back to Puller and slowly but clearly told him what she had seen. The van, the kid, everything.

  “So it was a deliberate setup the whole way,” Puller concluded.

  “It appeared to be. But why target Carter?”

  “Well, he heads up an important part of our nation’s defenses. He’s a target just by virtue of that.”

  “No, I get that. I’m just looking at the timing. Why now?”

  “You mean is it connected to what we’re doing?”

  “It could be.”

  He looked her over. “You up for some information sharing?”

  She smiled and slid her hand around his forearm. “With you here I’m up for anything.”

  Puller placed his hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when this happened, Knox. I should’ve been.”

  “You had no way to know I was going off half-cocked on my little sleuthing trip.”

  “You tried to save them. Over the phone I heard you screaming for them to get out of the car.”

  She shook her head, looked miserable, and put a hand to her face. She let out a sob, her eyes filled with tears, and she moaned, “I didn’t see it fast enough, Puller. I should’ve seen it faster, but I didn’t.”

  “You did everything you possibly could. You had seconds, maybe not even seconds. No matter what you did or didn’t do, Knox, they weren’t going to make it. They were already dead. They just didn’t know it. So while you may want to take the blame for it, please don’t. It won’t help you or them.”

  She let out another sob, composed herself, rubbed her eyes dry with her sheet, and focused on him. “I guess that was the weirdest phone call you’ve ever gotten, huh?”

  Puller looked down. “When I heard the bomb detonate over your open line—”

  She reached out and cupped his chin, drawing his gaze back to her. “I’m here, Puller. A little banged up and bloodied. But I’m not dead. Let’s count that as a victory.”

  He smiled. “I count it as a lot more than that.”

  Their gazes held on one another for a few more moments and then Puller reverted to business mode.

  “I spoke to an FBI agent who remembered Adam Reynolds, Susan’s husband.”

  “The hit-and-run?” she said.

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  He went on to tell her about the rest of his conversation with the agent and then his subsequent meeting with Susan Reynolds’s son, Dan.

  That part made Knox try to sit up again, and again, Puller held her back down.

  “I know,” he said. “I know. She really is a piece of work.”

  “That witch gets her husband killed for some reason. Another man? That’s what Adam Reynolds thought?”

  “Apparently so. And she was working in the former Soviet Union.”

  “Do we know exactly where?”

  “Working on it. But it had to do with the START verification program. She told us that herself.”

  “Nuke dismantling.”

  “Right. And she works at the WMD Center now,” Puller reminded her.

  Again, Knox tried to sit up, and this time he helped her, adjusting the bed control to support her.

  “So is that what this is all about? WMDs?”

  “Maybe it is now. If she’s a spy then she’s probably covered a lot of territory over the years. WMDs may be the latest on her checklist. But the positions she’s held have given her access to lots of valuable information that our enemies would pay a pretty penny for.”

  “And she just stares at you like you’re an idiot for even hinting that she might be involved in something shady.”

  “If she’s been doing this as long as I think she has, her poker face has to be exemplary. And by the way her financial history was conceived and hardened, I’m thinking she was seen as a high-level, long-term asset.” He added, “I have to believe the two-million-dollar insurance policy was her idea, not her husband’s.”

  “I need to get out of here, Puller. We need to get back to work.”

  “Whoa. You need rest. And you need time to heal.”

  “I don’t have time to do either. That can wait.”

  “No, it can’t wait.”

  She tried to get up and he pushed her back down. On the third time she said, “Damn it, John Puller, if I had a gun I’d shoot your ass.”

  “Well, good thing you don’t have a gun, then.”

  She stopped struggling, lay back, and let out a long, resigned sigh. “Okay, so when can I get the hell out of here?”

  “I’ll check with the docs, but probably within twenty-four hours. And after that, bed rest.”

  “Shit!”

  “It is what it is, Knox.”

  “And what are you going to do in the meantime?”

  “Follow up on all this.”

  “Without me?” she said, stunned by this prospect.

  “I will keep you informed of everything, I promise.”

  “And you won’t get killed?” She said this in a joking manner, but there was no humor in her look. “I almost bought it, Puller. One more step, one more second, no soft pillows at the end of the runway, I’m not here.”

  “I know that.”

  “No, maybe you don’t know that.” She reached up and gathered a fistful of his shirt. “Don’t die. Just… don’t.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  She slowly let his shirt go and sank back, breathless.

  “I’ll check in later.”

  “Yep,” she said, not looking at him.

  Puller walked out. He had told Knox everything he knew. Now he had to tell someone else.

  His brother.

  No code.

  Face-to-face.

  CHAPTER

  55

  HE DID END up sending a coded message first, to advise his brother that he wanted to meet. Then he did what he had done before. Drove to Quantico, swapped cars and left via another exit. He drove the rural roads, doubling back and then doubling back again before setting off for his actual destination. His brother’s pickup truck was parked in front of the same motel room door.

  He knocked. He saw the swish of curtains and put his hand on the butt of his M11. He said, “Bobby?” And his brother answered, “The coast is clear, Junior.”

  Déjà vu.

  Puller closed the door behind him, crossed the room, and sat down on the edge of the bed. His brother was on the chair he’d occupied at their last meeting.

  “Heard the news?” asked Puller.

  Robert nodded. “It’s all over the place. Carter’s dead.”

  “And two other guys.”

  “Media said a bomb.”

  “Media is right. My partner Knox was there. She saw it all. She tried to prevent it. Almost got killed.”

  “What exactly did she see?”

  Puller gazed sternly at his brother
. “I said she almost got killed, Bobby. She’s in a hospital bed right now. She wanted to climb out of it, get back to work on this thing. To help try to clear you.”

  It seemed to be an unfortunate quirk of his brother’s genius that he did not always grasp the personal side of the equation.

  Robert looked thoroughly taken aback. “I’m sorry, John, how is she?”

  “She’ll be okay.” He went on to tell his brother what Knox had observed.

  “They moved fast, then,” said Robert. “And they had operatives who could get it done on short notice.”

  “How do you know this hasn’t been planned for a long time?”

  “You met with the man this morning and he’s dead by the early evening.”

  “Could be unconnected.”

  “We have to deal in probabilities, John. And the clear probability is that the connection is there. A plus B equals C.”

  “But when we met with Carter and his sidekick, it was clear that they thought Reynolds was completely innocent. The matter was over and done in their mind.”

  “I read your notes on the conversation. They might have said that, but I don’t think they believed it.”

  “Based on what?”

  “For one they played their hand too strong, John. The head of DTRA is not going to meet with you directly the morning after you had a nightcap with him. He is not going to bring in his chief internal security officer. I happen to know Blair Sullivan. He’s worked all over STRATCOM. If the guy said more than two words to you, or became emotional in any way, it was an act. That’s not what he does. He could see a piano falling toward his head while he was at an outdoor café having lunch and he’d just move to the right and finish his sandwich.”

  “But why an act? Why try to deceive us? If they believed what we told them then I don’t get it.”

  “Just the act of believing does not mean they wanted to necessarily collaborate with you on this. You’re not one of them. DTRA is a critical agency to this country. They would never want it to appear that they could not appropriately control their employees. And if they have a spy in their midst, that would be dirty laundry that they would most assuredly not air in public.”

  “So what would they do?”

  “Clean it up from the inside. That’s why Sullivan was there.”

  “So they thought Reynolds was dirty?”

  “I can’t tell you exactly what they thought, but I can tell you that for an allegation of spying they would not have done a quick financial search the next morning and concluded everything was hunky-dory. This would take some time to complete and they would have gone back over her entire history. She’s at the WMD Center, for God’s sake, John. There is no room for mistakes. And if you found out about the suspect circumstances of her husband’s death, then they could too. They have a whole department of extremely bright people to work on stuff like that.”

  “Really? Well, if they were really bright people they wouldn’t have let her do what she’s been doing for probably the past twenty years, would they?”

  “People have failed at their jobs on this; I would agree with you there.”

  “So why did they target Carter so fast?”

  “I would imagine at DTRA the scuttlebutt of your meeting with Carter and Sullivan reached Reynolds’s ears.”

  “They told me that they had met with Reynolds and informed her of their conclusions.”

  “Then there you are. But she must have suspected what I just did. That they weren’t satisfied. And that they were going to keep looking into it. So she made contact with her people. The decision was made to pull the trigger.”

  “Damn, like you said, they don’t waste time.”

  “The fact that they knew his travel schedule leads me to believe that Reynolds has spies everywhere over there.”

  “Spies everywhere at DTRA? Are you serious?”

  “Well, at least exceptionally well-placed ones even if they’re not numerous. And if you’re really well positioned the few can accomplish what sometimes the many can’t. A secretary, a clerk, a data manager. Those positions might seem relatively trivial, but they’re at the heart of important information flows.”

  “I’m glad you can sit here and analyze this so calmly.”

  “There are more spies here than you would ever want to believe, John. And not just in government. The corporate side is filled with them. And many of those come from our so-called allies. They steal our secrets, use them against us, and smile at us while they’re doing it. We’re America, the one-ton gorilla. Everybody hates us.”

  “But what if Carter told someone of his suspicions? Wouldn’t his death put a bull’s-eye on Reynolds?”

  “Possibly. But things don’t move that fast in the intelligence field. Carter was never in uniform. He’s a scholar and a wonk for the most part.”

  “He killed three Taliban in Afghanistan to get away.”

  “Granted, but in the intervening years he’s been immersed in academia, for want of a better term. Slow and sure drives the boat. He would have wanted to mull this over, gather and consider additional facts. He brought along Sullivan for his input, surely. Reynolds is at the managerial level at DTRA, with a distinguished record. You do not knee-jerk accuse someone like that without indisputable evidence. Otherwise you’re looking at a lawsuit and a huge black eye for the agency. And Carter could have lost his job.”

  Puller shook his head in frustration. “This intelligence world is beyond me, Bobby. I’m used to being able to count on the people wearing the same uniform I do.”

  “Now DTRA is not focused on Reynolds. They’re looking for who did this to Carter. And I doubt anyone will seriously believe she had anything to do with it.”

  Puller rubbed his temples and said, “We still don’t know why Daughtrey was killed.”

  “I think we can reasonably speculate that he was killed because he no longer wanted to play the game. Niles Robinson committed this same act of treachery when he came to Union Station to talk to me. They had followed him, perhaps surmised that I was on the other end of that line, and he paid the ultimate price.”

  “Okay, but how did they bring Daughtrey into this in the first place? All I found out about him points to a patriot above reproach.”

  “Then we have to find a reason why he would switch sides. It might be very subtle, but obviously enough for a ‘patriot’ to turn tables.”

  Puller thought about this. “He has a condo in Pentagon City.”

  “Think you can get in there?”

  “I can try.”

  “I’d like to go with you.”

  “Not going to happen, Bobby. Nothing personal, but if I get caught with you, we’re both going to DB as fast as they can get us there.”

  As Puller rose to go, Bobby said, “I am sorry about your friend. Sometimes I’m too damn analytical for my own good.”

  Puller smiled weakly at his brother. “Don’t worry about it. Comes with being a genius, I guess.”

  “Well, that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason,” said Robert quietly.